Poem: Mud

Mud

Patrick T. Reardon

 

The little book of God is

written in mud on the

sidewalk outside the

supermercado on Cermak

beside the neon jazz club

of prophets and profiteers,

whispering in the thin

morning dark as at that

moment when the stone

had been rolled and a

new-scarred hand dug in

the garden and greeted

the most loved Mary

with dirty arms and with

her blooming, too bright

for those bearded ones

to see so, with that trick

of the mind, they did not

and saw what was easier,

selecting the reasonable

path and letting the mad

one overgrow with wild

weeds of great beauty and

with soil, muck, dung and

rot staining the cracked

concrete until washed away

like cheap absolution with the

alderman’s blunt power hose.

 

 

Patrick T. Reardon

4.22.26

 

This poem was original published as a broadside by Lost Penny Press on 4.21.26 with an illustration by Penny Pinch